A Review of the Application of Distributed Practice Principles to Naming Treatment in Aphasia

Abstract

It is uncontroversial in psychological research that different schedules of practice, which govern the distribution of practice over time, can promote radically different outcomes in terms of gains in performance and the durability of learning. In contrast, in speech-language treatment research, there is a critical need for well-controlled studies examining the impact of the distribution of treatment on efficacy (for reviews, see Cherney, 2012;Warren, Fey, & Yoder, 2007). In this paper, we enumerate key findings from psychological research on learning and memory regarding how different schedules of practice differentially confer durable learning. We review existing studies of aphasia treatment with a focus on naming impairment that have examined how the distribution of practice affects treatment efficacy. We close by discussing potential productive lines of research to elaborate the clinical applicability of distributed practice principles to language treatment.

An examination of retrieval practice and production training in the treatment of lexical–semantic comprehension deficits in aphasia.

“…Such an endeavor is likely to be worthwhile, considering retrieval practice research developed alongside a vast literature addressing optimal dosing and scheduling of learning experiences for maximizing the benefits from retrieval practice and other types of learning. Systematic translation from these literature to aphasia has shown promise for optimizing naming treatment efficacy for lexical access deficits, a primary contributor to naming disorders in aphasia (for reviews, see de Lima et al, 2020;Middleton et al, 2020). In the production module, both methods of training (retrieval practice and errorless learning) were associated with transfer at one or both test timepoints; that is, items that underwent production practice were associated with higher WPV accuracy at the retention tests relative to the untrained items.…”

“…This study contributes to a growing body of work (Friedman et al, 2017;Middleton et al, 2015Middleton et al, , 2016Middleton et al, , 2019Middleton et al, , 2020Rapp & Wiley, 2019;Schuchard et al, 2020) seeking to translate from a vast literature on fundamental principles of human learning to help guide selection and scheduling of commonly used clinical tools for maximizing the efficiency and efficacy of interventions for aphasia. We have provided an experimental framework and original observations, to provide a foundation for future work seeking to systematically translate from fundamental principles of human learning to improve cognitive rehabilitation.…”

“…Such an endeavor is likely to be worthwhile, considering retrieval practice research developed alongside a vast literature addressing optimal dosing and scheduling of learning experiences for maximizing the benefits from retrieval practice and other types of learning. Systematic translation from these literature to aphasia has shown promise for optimizing naming treatment efficacy for lexical access deficits, a primary contributor to naming disorders in aphasia (for reviews, see de Lima et al, 2020; Middleton et al, 2020).…”

“…Our aim is to investigate the applicability of retrieval practice learning factors to a clinical problem, that is, lexical-semantic word-comprehension deficits in aphasia. To do this, we adopted a multipronged strategy developed by Middleton et al (2015Middleton et al ( , 2016Middleton et al ( , 2019Middleton et al ( , 2020. This involves manipulating aspects of common treatment experiences in controlled, experimental comparisons to provide "proof of concept" of the relevance of retrieval practice factors in the present domain.…”

Therapies and Challenges in the Post-Stroke Aphasia Rehabilitation Arena: Current and Future Prospects

“…However, this was not the case for functional communication and communication-related QoL immediately after treatment and at one-month follow-up. Even though motor learning and cognitive trials provide evidence that distributed practice may be more beneficial [ 142 ], it is still unclear whether massed practice is superior to distributed SALT in aphasia rehabilitation [ 143 ].…”